1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document processor capable of elaborating on words in a previously prepared document or a document presently being prepared, and more particularly to a document processor which checks the proper usage of homonyns which are likely to be mistaken.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
The widespread use of document processors, such as Japanese word processors and computers, simplifies the preparation and editing of documents at offices and in homes. In such document preparing and editing operations, various errors frequently occur, such as the operators, improper selection of homonyms, or in the case of Japanese word processors, where foreign borrowed words, which in Japanese should be expressed in katakana, are erroneously converted to kanji. Briefly, katakana is a Japanese writing style wherein each Japanese character represents phonetically a vocal sound corresponding to a part of a Japanese word. Kanji is a Japanese writing style wherein each Japanese character represents an entire word or idea. For instance, in the case where the correct phrase should be ".circle. (climb a mountain)," the phrase is erroneously written as ".circle. (rise a mountain)," or in the case where the correct phrase should be ".circle. (sound and light)," the phrase is converted to such as ".circle.".
Conventionally, there are document processors that are adapted to check the meanings and examples of words and phrases that are likely to result in input errors, by means of an electronic dictionary incorporated in the apparatus. Such an apparatus display a prepared document on a display screen and a questionable portion is highlighted with a cursor, or doubtful words and phrases may be input by the user through a keyboard and then their meanings and examples of use are displayed on the display screen.
With such apparatus, however, the following problems have been encountered. It is necessary to designate doubtful words and phrases by the cursor, or inputting them through the keyboard. Even if an electronic dictionary exists, it is troublesome and time consuming to refer to the dictionary, and it has been impossible to check the documents with ease.
As a general rule, whether or not the word or phrase concerned is correct is finally determined by the person who prepared the document. Hence, if the person who prepared the document believed the incorrect words or phrases to be correct, he is unable to accurately correct the document. Of course, it has conventionally been recommended to have a person different from the person who prepared the document to check it in order to eliminate such a drawback. However, it is necessary to assign a plurality of personnel for the operations of preparing and checking documents, and this arrangement does not teach the person preparing the documents his errors. In addition, this arrangement is disadvantageous in terms of high personnel costs and low work efficiency.
Although a description has been given above of doubtful words and phrases, in cases where more appropriate words or phrases exist than the words or phrases input, there has been the problem that a change cannot easily be made to such words or phrases, insofar as the person who prepared the document may not be aware of the existence of more appropriate words or phrases.